Beyond the sun: Meet the rain-chasers tracking the UAE’s summer storms

A convoy with its eyes on the sky.

The midday heat over Manama is heavy enough to shimmer off the tarmac. But along one stretch of road, cars are pulling in one after another, and nobody is looking at the mountains for the view.

They are watching the cloud bases.

These are the UAE’s rain chasers, and they have driven in from across the emirates on the strength of a set of coordinates posted only hours earlier. Gulf News joined them for the day. By the time the convoy settled, roughly 100 cars had gathered, most of them packed with family and friends.

The engineer behind the forecast

The man they all followed here is Muhammed Sajjad KP, better known online as the UAE Weatherman.

A civil engineer by profession, Sajjad is a self-taught meteorologist who has built a substantial following by tracking the country’s micro-climates. His speciality is localised cloud formation, often called hours in advance, and it is precise enough that people rearrange their working day around it.

What has grown around him is less a follower count than a community. When he posts, they drive.

Family tradition, four wheels and a forecast

For Hameed Ali and his wife, Aneesa Hameed, the chase is a family outing. The couple drove up from Ajman with their three children, as they have been doing since 2020.

“This is our way of getting away from the UAE heat,” said Hameed.

Originally from Kerala, the couple are close friends with Sajjad. Their pursuit of a good downpour does not stop at the border either. They have crossed into neighbouring Oman more than once purely for the promise of rain.

The midday heat over Manama is heavy enough to shimmer off the tarmac. But along one stretch of road, cars are pulling in one after another, and nobody is looking at the mountains for the view.

They are watching the cloud bases.

These are the UAE’s rain chasers, and they have driven in from across the emirates on the strength of a set of coordinates posted only hours earlier. Gulf News joined them for the day. By the time the convoy settled, roughly 100 cars had gathered, most of them packed with family and friends.

The engineer behind the forecast

The man they all followed here is Muhammed Sajjad KP, better known online as the UAE Weatherman.

A civil engineer by profession, Sajjad is a self-taught meteorologist who has built a substantial following by tracking the country’s micro-climates. His speciality is localised cloud formation, often called hours in advance, and it is precise enough that people rearrange their working day around it.

What has grown around him is less a follower count than a community. When he posts, they drive.

Family tradition, four wheels and a forecast

For Hameed Ali and his wife, Aneesa Hameed, the chase is a family outing. The couple drove up from Ajman with their three children, as they have been doing since 2020.

“This is our way of getting away from the UAE heat,” said Hameed.

Originally from Kerala, the couple are close friends with Sajjad. Their pursuit of a good downpour does not stop at the border either. They have crossed into neighbouring Oman more than once purely for the promise of rain.

Twenty-two years, five of them chasing

A few cars along, Imtiaz Ahmad Gondal is scanning the horizon with his six-year-old son, Mohammad Zian, and seven-year-old daughter, Hareem Fatima.

A Pakistani expat, Imtiaz has lived in the UAE for 22 years and made today’s trip from Sharjah. His family landed from Pakistan on visit visas only last week, and the chase went straight to the top of the itinerary.

He has followed Sajjad for five years now, travelling with the convoy everywhere from Al Ain to Oman. Manama is familiar ground. A chase here last year is the reason he came back.

Booking a day off for the weather

Mohammad Ali Tatul finished work early this morning, then rounded up friends and family for the drive. A Bangladeshi expat, he has been in the UAE since 2012.

His entire day was built around a single message. Sajjad sent word yesterday telling followers to request time off, because today looked promising.

“I trust him because he can pinpoint the exact location of the rain,” Mohammad said.